The Congress President is In
It seems as if the Congress president is in (office), with Sonia Gandhi visibly taking an active interest in political affairs once again. Suddenly, it is Sonia and not Rahul who is visible and vocal on the floor of the House whether it is leading the opposition protest against petrol price hike, raising the issue of Facebook’s interference in Indian elections to asking the government to restart midday meals in schools. She could also be seen directing other opposition MPs to focus on petrol price hikes instead of raising other issues and diverting from the agenda at hand. The interim Congress chief also recently met with party workers from poll bound Himachal, while Rahul Gandhi met with those from Gujarat. She also reached out to members of the G-23 beginning with Ghulam Nabi Azad and others like Manish Tewari and Anand Sharma. Even during the CWC, she led from the front, first offering to resign and then taking responsibility for the delay in shifting Captain Amarinder as Punjab CM (this is being cited as one of the reasons for the poll drubbing). Since Rahul Gandhi was being blamed for this, she managed to deflect some of the criticism away from him—for her political capital is undoubtedly higher than his, both within and outside the party.
ADVISORS UNDER FIRE
Rahul’s advisors have also come under fire along with him. Knives are out especially for the trio of Ajay Maken, K.C. Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala for they are seen as his A Team, and others such as Harish Chaudhary (who handled ticket distribution in Punjab along with Maken) and Sandeep Singh (Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s advisor for Uttar Pradesh). The allegations against Sandeep are that he misguided Priyanka on her campaign and cut off access to her. A day after the results—and the criticism—came in, Sandeep had tweeted on 12 March that “Those who have never stepped out of their houses for sangarsh (struggle) are busy criticizing Priyanka and her team. Was fighting for hathras ki beti wrong? Was fighting in Unna, Agra wrong? (rough translation of the tweet which was in Hindi). Clearly, the Congress leadership has a lot of firefighting on its hands.
MODILITE
Is Arvind Kejriwal following the Modi Model of politics? Both have a lot in common in terms of style—be it a strong personality cult, the aam admi, non dynast roots—one is a chai wala and the other an ex-bureaucrat; both believe in welfare politics distributing freebies and waivers, while Modi is seen as the Hindutva poster boy, Kejriwal is also seen reciting the Hanuman Chalisa at the drop of a hat! The only difference is that while Modi has a mass pan India following, Kejriwal may have pan India recognition, but not the cadre and base. But if there is one opposition leader who matches Modi in terms of strategic (and flexible) political thinking, 24 ×7 working hours and forceful oratory, it is the AAP leader. What he lacks, as I said earlier, is a cadre and voter base! This is something he is working on buoyed by the Punjab win. This is also the one reason why it is not just the BJP, but also the rest of the Opposition that’s wary of Kejriwal’s rise.